


The Kids Aren't Alright

by bravest_person_in_Wonderland



Series: Something That Isn't Even a Love Story Is STILL a Better Love Story Than Twilight [4]
Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Angst and Feels, Anxious Racetrack Higgins, Emotional Hurt, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Jack calling Race and Crutchie his kids, Panic Attacks, Protective Smalls (Newsies), Race and Smalls Platonic Life Partners, Racetrack Higgins Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29473536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravest_person_in_Wonderland/pseuds/bravest_person_in_Wonderland
Summary: Jack had always been a steadying presence, someone they could all depend on and look up to. He took good care of them. Race couldn't be that. Jack was all the things he wasn't, and Race didn't know how to live up to that, how to be all the things the other kids needed.
Relationships: Crutchie & Racetrack Higgins, David Jacobs & Jack Kelly, Racetrack Higgins & Jack Kelly, Racetrack Higgins & Smalls
Series: Something That Isn't Even a Love Story Is STILL a Better Love Story Than Twilight [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2130330
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	The Kids Aren't Alright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [light4thelord](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=light4thelord).



> title from the song by Fall Out Boy bc I've had it on loop all week and it just hits right in the feels. 
> 
> Warnings for anxiety and a panic attack. I personally have never had a panic attack, so I've read a lot about how to portray them, and I really hope I've done it respectfully and accurately here. If anyone has any thoughts on that specifically, I'd love to hear them.
> 
> dedicated to light4thelord because their comments on my Newsies fics were so sweet and encouraging and spurred me to finish this much sooner than I might have otherwise :D

It had been a good summer. It was bound not to last.

The anxiety that was laced through Race's chest pulled taut as Jack spoke, and it was like a string had been woven between his ribs and was now jumbling all the bones together. He couldn't breathe. Some of the others, standing nearby, made to go after Jack, but Race held out an arm to stop them. He made eye contact with Jack for only a split second, but it was enough to confirm: this was real. And then Jack ran, running into a man on the way out who shoved a fat wad of money into his hands.

Race didn't know what happened between then and the time he ended up on the roof of the lodging house, sitting with his back pressed against the rim of the roof. He knew he must have done things, gotten his group — _they weren't supposed to be his, this wasn't supposed to happen, Jack was supposed to be here to take care of them, this isn't the way Race was supposed to take over_ — back to the lodging house, but he genuinely couldn't recall anything that had happened after Jack left. All he knew for sure was that it had happened. Jack had sold out, was probably well on his way to freaking Santa Fe by now.

And Race was on the roof, holding a blanket that had belonged to Jack or Crutchie, alone in the darkness. Jack had clearly come back for his drawings, because the spot he usually stashed them was empty. It was surreal to think that Jack had probably been right here, and Race had somehow just missed him. Not that he had any idea what he would have done or said. Maybe he could have stopped him, though, from leaving. Changed his mind somehow.

He pulled his knees up and pressed his forehead to them. He didn't know how long he had already been sitting there, just that it had gotten dark at some point and was now well probably well into the night. He had a vague recollection of himself snapping for the others to go to be quiet and go to bed, but it was like he was remembering something someone else had done. He didn't know how much longer he sat there before he heard the sound of someone else climbing up to the roof.

"Go away," he said, not looking up to even see who it was.

"No," Smalls replied dryly. Of course it was her.

Race lifted his head and raised an eyebrow. "No way to convince ya?"

"Nope."

"Fine."

They both went silent. Smalls came over and sat down next to him, cross-legged. Race wanted to say something, anything, just to get what he was feeling out into the air, but he didn't know how. He was feeling too many things, or maybe nothing at all. He didn't know anymore. He didn't know anything at all. He didn't even know it when he started crying until he tasted the saltiness at the corner of his lips.

"Racer?" Smalls called him, nudging him.

He sniffed and looked over at her, roughly wiping at his eyes.

"We'll get Crutchie back," she said firmly.

Race didn't miss the fact that she didn't say anything about Jack. Any other time, it would have been normal: Smalls never used any more words than were strictly necessary, when she even talked at all. But tonight, Jack's betrayal hung heavy in the air, left mutually unacknowledged even though it was the reason the world was falling apart.

"I want 'em both back," Race mumbled, more tears welling up as he buried his face in his knees once again. "I can't do this."

He hated the way his voice pitched up when he said it. He was aware he had a young-sounding voice, and didn't usually mind it. It made people think he was younger than he actually was, which led to making more sales. But now, he resented his own weakness. He was the leader now, he couldn't do this, couldn't break down. He had to be strong for the others.

"Yeah ya can," Smalls replied simply, her concise bluntness strangely comforting.

They sat there in silence again for long enough that Race had dried his tears, although he could still feel then threatening to overwhelm him again. They almost did when he realized with a jolt that everything was up to him now. It was too late to give up on the strike, now that Brooklyn and the rest of the city was backing them. Jack's betrayal had been a blow to morale, but maybe they could spin it to fuel their fight. They were newsies, after all — spinning things to their advantage was their business.

And Race had Davey, now, to help out. He'd already taken on a lot of responsibility for the strike. But Race hadn't seen him since the moment Jack ran out of the theatre. At least, he didn't think he had. He couldn't remember that any better than he could anything else that had happened that evening. He knew that Katherine had been there, maybe had tried to talk to him during the pandemonium, but he couldn't remember that, either. Hopefully those two would help him, because he wasn't anywhere near ready for this.

The idea of being in charge of the borough terrified him, even without the fact that they were currently striking. Jack had always been a steadying presence, someone they could all depend on and look up to. He took good care of them, or he had until today at least. Race couldn't be that. Jack was all the things he wasn't — including, now, a traitor; that knowledge felt like a knife being twisted in Race's heart — and Race didn't know how to live up to that, how to be everything that the other kids needed.

He was spiraling, he knew it, but he did absolutely nothing to stop the mental descent. He thought about Jack, on a train out west, getting what he always wanted and leaving scars in his path, and about Crutchie, alone and injured and helpless in the refuge. The refuge was the worst place Race had ever been, and he had the scars and mended bones and trauma to show for it. As he remembered, a phantom spike of pain shot through his right collarbone, and he gasped.

And then he was gone.

All he knew was the overwhelming dread that filled him, the inability to even think of anything other than _helpIcan'tIcan'tIcan'tIcan'tIcan'thelphelphelp._ He felt, irrationally, like he couldn't breathe, even though his lungs were pulling in air just as well as they always had. The twisting, buzzing feeling that was almost a constant in his life at this point was stronger than he had ever felt it, and he thought he might start crying again because it was so powerful. It was blinding, choking, a deep pressure in his throat that needed an outlet or he might explode. All he could do was choke out a groaning whimper, though.

"Hey," Smalls said, closer than she'd been before. She had shifted so she was turned toward him, one leg tucked underneath her. Gently, she grabbed his arm and shook him, and the touch grounded him. "Race."

Race had always been tactile. He was a hugger and had been as far back as he could remember. Despite the fact that he'd been hit and beaten up more times than he could count, touch had only ever had positive connotations to him — love and comfort and safety. Smalls' hand on his arm was like an anchor, keeping him from drifting any further away in his maelstrom of emotions.

"Racer-Rose?"

The nickname brought him back. "Sorry," he whispered, the first and only thing that came to mind. "Sorry, sorry- sorry, I'm- sorry, I-" he stuttered, repeating himself because he couldn't say anything else. He shoved his hands through his hair and buried his face in the bends of his arms.

"Shut up," Smalls muttered, but it wasn't unkind or anything. It was just... Smalls.

"Can I ask ya somethin'?" Race asked weakly, a few minutes later. He liked Smalls' quietness, the way she dropped conversations where any other person would say something else. She said more in silence than most people did in a hundred words, anyway, and tonight that meant an unspoken sense of not being alone.

Race may have lost Crutchie to the refuge, Jack may have abandoned him, he may have been more scared than he'd ever been in his life, but he wasn't alone in it.

"Yeah, shoot," Smalls replied.

"Would-" He had to cut off to yawn, heavy exhaustion seeping through him and blending with the tangle between his ribs to make a murky mess of stuff he didn't know what to do about. "Would you be- be my second?"

It made sense. If Race was in charge now, he had to have a second-in-command, the way he had been Jack's. And he trusted Smalls more than nearly anybody. She was tiny, but one of the steadiest people he had ever met. He knew he tended to be volatile, but maybe the two of them could balance each other out.

Smalls stared at him, then blinked and replied with a simple, "'Kay." A few seconds passed. "You sleepin' up here?"

The truth was, Race didn't even know if he had the strength to stand. He felt vaguely, mildly dizzy even just sitting there. So he nodded slowly in response.

"'Kay," Smalls said again. "I'm not, though," she added, getting up. "G'night."

"Thanks," Race said after her as she went to climb back down. He figured she would know what he meant.

* * *

Smalls was almost asleep when she heard the voices downstairs. Obviously she didn't have a watch, so she didn't know what time it actually was. She had been up top with Racer for quite a while, though, so it was either really late or really early, depending on your point of view. Everybody else had fallen asleep despite themselves. Buttons was snoring.

And someone was talking.

She opened her eyes, then squinted them, listening. Whoever it was was trying to be quiet, talking in undertones, but they weren't doing very well at it. Smalls could hear at least two different hushed voices, then a third. She was pretty sure she recognized all three of them, and _someone_ was about to get what was coming to them.

The lodging house's floors were creaky, but if someone knew where the solid spots were, they could get around in perfect silence, even on the stairs. Smalls had memorized the patterns a long time ago, and was downstairs in under a minute. Standing there in the surprisingly bright light of the moon were David Jacobs, Katherine Plumber, and none other than elder-prodigal-son Jack freaking Kelly.

Smalls marched up to Jack, whose eyes widened in recognition for a split second before she shoved him hard against the closest wall. She didn't say anything, just stared at him, a betrayed glare that seemed to mildly intimidate Davey. The thing was, she wasn't personally very upset. Sure, she was pretty hacked off that Jack had sold out to Pulitzer, but the thing that really had her worked up was the fact that Race had been _crying._

The only other time she had ever seen Race Higgins cry had been right after they had met, after they had come back here from the refuge the first time. He'd been hurt, gotten his shoulder broken — defending her, actually, and after she had literally just told him not to be protective of her — and as soon as they had reached the lodging house had broken down crying in Jack's arms. Nothing had ever made Smalls as angry as the fact that the one person who Race always reached out to in his vulnerable moments had so easily walked away without caring about what it would do to him or anyone else.

"You're gonna have to actually say somethin'," Jack hissed, staring at her in shock. "I can't read-" He waved a hand at her. "-That, whatever your silent-talkin' thing is, not like Racer can."

Smalls glared up at him a moment longer, teeth gritted. "He was cryin', ya know that?" She spat. "He was breakin' down up there on your _penthouse_ 'cause you decided your stupid _Santa Fe_ is more important 'n him, or anyone else."

Jack's entire posture changed. His shoulders dropped and he lifted both hands and dropped his face into them. Davey looked on with a pained expression for several long, long moments before Katherine cleared her throat.

"I'm going to go get everything... set up... for my part," she said, a bit apologetically, before leaving.

That seemed to spur Jack back into motion. He dropped his hands and looked at Smalls, who stood there with her arms crossed and face smoldering.

"I'm here to fix this," he said pleadingly. "I never wanted to sell out, ya gotta believe me, I did it to protect youse-"

"Don't even," Smalls said, dangerously low. If he thought he could get away with playing that card, then he was very mistaken. He couldn't try and say he was protecting _anyone,_ not when he had just stabbed the kid he claimed was his brother in the heart in every way but the literal.

"Pulitzer was gonna have all of ya taken to the refuge," Jack argued. "Even Dave and Les."

Smalls narrowed her eyes.

"I'm sorry," Jack said, his eyes begging for her to believe him. "I'm sorry," he repeated when she didn't reply, and she thought of Race earlier on the roof, stammering a desperate string of apologies for something she didn't even understand.

She didn't tell him that, of course. She gave a tight nod, not ready to fully forgive him yet, then raised an eyebrow and glanced between him and Davey. Last she remembered, Davey had been looking almost as devastated as Race after Jack's performance at the rally. Now he was standing here, so close to Jack that their shoulders were almost touching, in the wee hours of the night for who-knew-what reason.

"We have a plan," Davey explained, able to read a look much better than Jack could. "But we need everyone's help."

Smalls raised both eyebrows now, but shrugged. "Stay here," she said, and the two boys listened.

It took her five minutes to get everybody up, including dragging an exhausted and emotionally drained Race down from the rooftop, and by the time they were all downstairs, Jack had had at least five death threats made against him. He explained everything again, in more detail, and even Smalls had to soften. It didn't excuse what he had done, but at least he hadn't meant to truly run away.

She stood in a corner of the room, leaning against the wall, and watched Race as Jack spoke. She listened just enough to get the gist of the plan that Jack and Davey tag-teamed to explain: they were going to create their own newspaper and spread it around the city's workers in an attempt to stir up a larger uprising. It was a good plan, but Smalls was mostly paying attention to Race.

Tension practically radiated off of him, relief evident in his eyes, but paired with a faint sort of desperation and more than a small bit of leftover anger. When Jack finally broke away from the questions of the group and made his way to where Race stood, Smalls watched curiously to see how the reunion would go. Even if Jack's intentions hadn't been what they thought, he had still hurt Race — and all the rest, for that matter — in a way that couldn't just be brushed aside with a simple apology.

So Smalls did what she was best at: she watched.

* * *

It had been hard enough saying those words and seeing the look on Davey's face, but the momentary flicker of shock and pain in Race's eyes when Jack had caught his gaze in the theater was almost enough to make him turn back and explain everything right then. But he couldn't let Snyder have them all, not when everyone he cared about was in one place, too easy to get to. So he had run away, the memory of his friend and his kid shattering right in front of him seared into his mind's eye.

It had been hard enough talking to Katherine, even harder trying to apologize to Davey. But coming back to the lodging house and facing Racer was by far the hardest.

Race had the brightest blue eyes. Jack had never quite been able to capture the exact shade in ink, and heaven knew he had tried. He hated that the hurt in those eyes was his fault. Smalls' anger was absolutely justified, because Jack hated himself more than anything right then for hurting his kid.

There was a moment's hesitation when he first approached Race in the back corner of the room. Smalls was standing there, looking like she was keeping guard or something, and maybe she was. She'd always been aloof, never really attached to anyone except maybe Race. And if her actions that night meant anything, she also had a protective streak.

Race crossed his arms tightly across his chest as Jack approached, like he was trying to hold himself together. Maybe he was. He stared at Jack with a mixture of anger and pain and so many other things that Jack couldn't name if he tried.

"Why?" He snapped, then before Jack could even open his mouth to say anything: "Nah, you already told us _why,_ but-" He cut off, unfolding his arms so he could run a hand through his hair.

"I'm sorry," Jack said quietly, even though he had said it a hundred times already. The words couldn't mend anything, but maybe the sentiment and truth behind them could start to.

"I know," Race replied bitterly. "It don't help, though. Not one bit, not when ya made every appearance o' betrayin' us-" The meaning behind his words, an unspoken _betraying me,_ was so clear that it made Jack flinch as Race continued, his voice growing louder and faster as he spoke.

"-And leavin' me without any warnin' or goodbye or nothin'! I can't- I- ya can't leave me like that, I can't-" He broke off again with a strangled noise of heartbreak or frustration.

Jack felt a lump forming in his throat. He wanted to apologize again, because he didn't know what else to do, but he knew that wouldn't help. Race clenched his jaw and looked away, over to where Smalls was standing with her arms crossed, watching them. She met his eyes and raised her eyebrows, as if urging him on.

"I can't do this without ya," Race muttered to Jack, sliding down the wall to a sitting position.

"What's 'this'?" Smalls asked, her first input in the situation.

Race seemed a bit surprised by her insertion, casting a cried glance her way, but he answered anyway, tiredly. "Anythin'," he said, lifting his eyes back to Jack. "Please," he begged, the single word sending a spike through Jack's heart. He didn't elaborate, but Jack understood nonetheless.

"I ain't gonna leave you," he promised, crouching in front of him. "Please believe me."

Slowly, hesitantly, Jack lifted a hand and cupped Race's cheek. Race froze, stiffly staring at him for so long that he started to resign himself to the fact that his brother would never forgive him. But then Race swallowed hard, and with an expression that spoke of more relief and hurt than any sixteen year old should ever have to feel, he leaned his head into Jack's hand.

Jack all but melted. He swallowed against the pressure building even stronger in his throat and chest, and stroked a thumb across his kid's cheekbone. He would have willingly stayed there all night, but he knew they couldn't. A silent understanding passed between them, despite the tension and hurt that Jack knew would take longer than just a few minutes to heal.

But it _would_ heal, and they would someday be alright again.

* * *

**_Coda_ **

Crutchie stepped out into the light, and the remaining weight that had been sitting on Race's chest, even after he had poured out his heart to Jack, finally lifted. It was like air re-entering the world, and it made Race almost light-headed with the force of it. He grinned as Jack immediately bolted over and wrapped Crutchie in a long, desperate hug. He let them have their moment, tears — of still-present pain, of relief, of exhaustion, of joy, of the simple fact of being utterly overwhelmed by emotion — burning at the backs of his eyes.

When he joined them, he wrapped his arms tightly around Crutchie and felt Jack's palm come to rest on his back, and the last bit of buzzing, of tangled pulling in his ribcage, finally faded away.

**Author's Note:**

> Kath saw family drama and noped on out of there, which is. Very Relatable. 
> 
> I went waaayyyyy off my original plan for this fic, which was supposed to span the entirety of Livesies from Race's POV ~~and possibly a couple scenes from Smalls' POV~~ , but I like this better tbh. 
> 
> I've literally had the mental image of Smalls going after Jack in my head for like a month now, like she acts super aloof and chill and like she's not a very caring person, but she also has the "hurt my Person™️ in any way shape or form and I will throw you into the fires of Mordor with my bare hands" instinct
> 
> Also!!!! I plan to write something featuring our wonderful ginger boi Albert soon! I realized that I've lowkey been neglecting some of the main canon friendships in writing this series so... I'm gonna try my hand at writing Albo, wish me luck. I won't make any promises on timeline, but once I find an idea I like I'll try and have something up soon-ish. :)


End file.
